Once more up with the huge iron and once down along the wall, then David steps back a little and looks at his work. A half-finished ice flower, drawn in the snow. Their Creator wears a fur hat and thick gloves. In his hand he is holding a device that looks like an oversized cheese grater. In fact, it is used by the trained woodcutter when notching the wall. “It’s actually for aerated concrete,” he says. But if you want to decorate a concrete-hard snow wall, you have to improvise.
Actually, David Holzbauer is from Bremen. But that doesn’t stop him from immortalizing himself in Bavarian snow and ice year after year.
(Photo: Sebastian Beck)
Welcome to the Igloo Village on the Zugspitze, an art hotel made of snow and ice at an altitude of 2030 meters. A week before Christmas there is still a construction site here. In the main room there is a scaffolding on which two other artists carve fish and nasty monsters into the ice. “Funky Monster” is the motto this year, you could have guessed it: Long-armed fish, grinning bookworms and four-eyed gorillas stare at you throughout the complex.
Jan Wernet, three-day beard, ski hat, knocks on the wall. “Everything is stable,” he says. As the site manager, he knows how difficult it is to create a hotel out of snow and ice year after year. About six weeks before the Christmas opening, thousands of cubic meters of snow are transported with snow blowers and a snowcat using large balloons – this is how the cavity is created. If the snow cover is thick and firm enough, the air is let out again. The workers install wooden doors, lay kilometers of power cables, install the lights, set up the ice sculptures and set up the ice bar.
Jan Wernet explains how the snow hotel is built on the Zugspitzplatt.
(Photo: Sebastian Beck)
It has been going on between glacier descent two and three for 16 years. Only last year was there a bitter end. Since the hotels had to close due to Corona, the workers stamped the building again prematurely. “It makes your heart bleed,” says Wernet. Speaking of the heart: According to tradition, there have already been several marriage proposals and wedding nights here in the zero-degree hotel. The main witness is likely to be the Romantic-Igloo-Plus room. In addition to snow and ice art, thermal mats, expedition sleeping bags, a USB connection and the shared whirlpool, the ice suite also has a private toilet and half board. An exclusive pleasure from 458 euros per night – otherwise the construction costs of tens of thousands of euros per year would hardly be profitable.
A room in the igloo hotel on the Zugspitzplatt with ice frescoes on the wall.
(Photo: Sebastian Beck)
The concept comes from Switzerland, where “Iglu-Dorf GmbH” is also based. The initially inconspicuous pile of snow on the Zugspitze is the only German branch. But there are also simpler concepts in Bavaria: In addition to the upscale “Igloo Lodge” in Oberstorf, Pfronten and Oberaudorf also offer do-it-yourself versions where visitors can build their own igloo. That is no competition for the total work of art between the lateral moraine and the slope: The igloo village is almost fully booked for this season, and there are almost only free rooms during the week. The annual Gaudi continues until the end of April. In order to avoid liability problems, the building is flattened again by the excavator around Easter – only to be resurrected in early winter.